A High Court’s writ jurisdiction is considered to be an ‘extraordinary jurisdiction’ whereby the High Court – which is at the apex of the State judicial machinery, becomes directly accessible to ordinary citizens seeking relief against any authority, including any Government. A detailed study of the manner in which this extraordinary jurisdiction is invoked and exercised, is in the interest of both the Judiciary and the State, since writ petitions constitute a bulk of a High Court’s burden, with most being filed against the Government.

Vidhi's Report on the Karnataka High Court’s writ jurisdiction is based on a data driven study of writ petitions filed before the Karnataka High Court across a period of five years before the Bengaluru Bench (2012-2016) and three years before the Dharwad and Kalaburgi Benches (2014-2016).

The data has been studied to understand the nature of writ petitions filed against the Government, functioning at different levels of governance. This gives us a nuanced understanding on the issue of ‘Government litigation’ and highlights the supply-side issues which contributes to making the ‘Government’, the biggest litigant. This study has also shed light on some of the inefficiencies in the functioning of the Karnataka High Court, both on the judicial and administrative side.

The raw data which has been collected for the purposes of this study will be uploaded shortly.